


Homecoming

by beetle



Series: Always and Ever Homeward [1]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Childhood Friends, Childhood Sweethearts, Declarations Of Love, Depression, F/M, Family Loss, First Kiss, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Hopeful Ending, I promise. . . ., Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mutual Pining, Neither of the main pairing dies, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reunions, Reyder, Star-crossed, Veterans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 09:50:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11849070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: “Oh . . . myGod. Scott. . . ?”Even though it’s been nearly two decades since he last heard it, Scott Darryl Ryder immediately recognizes that voice from once upon a childhood—from tone to timbre—and freezes at the stupid VA coffee machine.





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stitchcasual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchcasual/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: Mentions of past major character death, past violence, past injury. Childhood friends turned star-crossed lovers. ANGST. War-related PTSD. But a very hopeful ending.

“Oh . . . my _God_. _Scott_. . . ?”

 

Even though it’s been nearly two decades since he last heard it, Scott Darryl Ryder immediately recognizes that voice from once upon a childhood—from tone to timbre—and freezes at the stupid VA coffee machine.

 

Seconds later, he’s swearing, and jerking his hand and himself away from the machine as his cup overflows with shitty, watery, acidic Joe that apparently has a half-life of eternity-plus-ten. Once his finger is off the dispenser button, the coffee stops flowing, but there’s a puddle on the floor, spreading toward his worn-out sneakers. The sleeve of the jacket he’s had since Basic is damp and steaming, and his thumb and half his hand are throbbing from the spiteful burn.

 

He swears again, briefly angry enough to hurl his fists—and himself—at the machine and keep doing so until it or he is destroyed. Until everything is at last _done_ , even the sudden, horrible heat in his chest and the rage in his fists.

 

But he doesn’t. And the anger passes. Or goes back to sleep. Whichever.

 

So, he simply drops the overfull cup in the garbage, no fucks given about the seventy-five cents he can ill afford to waste, and takes a breath. Lets it out and takes another, half-certain he’s hallucinating. Again.

 

Stepping back a few steps from the machine and the spreading puddle of floor-coffee, Scott hitches his worn, dusty duffel higher on his tired shoulder. Then he pinches the bridge of his nose while shaking his head twice, hard. He counts slowly up to five then back down to one, before turning in the direction of that familiar-but-from-forever-ago voice, eyes squinting half-shut as if that ever helps anything.

 

Standing before him—three yards distant, or thereabouts—just beyond the circular rows of seats, as solid as his low, smooth voice, wearing rumpled scrubs, a battered, brown leather jacket, sturdy walking-shoes, and a backpack that’s seen better days is. . . .

 

“Reyes,” Scott huffs out, eyes going wider and wider even as his shoulders sag with a release of tension that’s been more constant of a companion than just about anything or anyone besides Sara. “Reyes Vidal.”

 

“In the flesh. Barely,” Reyes says, laughing a little around a sudden yawn. He looks much the same as Scott remembers him—tall, strong and solid, handsome and somehow meticulous despite the messy, askew scrubs and his disheveled undercut, those effortlessly _devastating_ green eyes and that crooked-warm smile—only older and, somehow, better. “Surprised I made it here without sleeping past the stop on the Metro.”

 

Scott blinks and frowns, then snorts, looking down. “All that motion and white noise can be . . . really lulling, I suppose,” he says lamely, wiping his hand on his jacket absently. It still stings from the burn and from the battery acid-coffee getting into the innumerable scrapes on his already grungy-grimy hand.

 

“Like being a babe in arms,” Reyes agrees, taking a few relaxed, but hesitant steps closer. Scott matches him step for step in the same direction, and Reyes pauses.

 

“Of all the people I expected to run into here. . . .” he starts in a voice so light and easy, it has to be put-on. Or maybe . . . maybe Scott’s the only one who’s been foolish enough to hold onto childhood shit that means nothing to no one else.

 

Hitching his duffel up again, feeling even more uncertain and defensive than he usually does, Scott continues to frown down at the chipped, faded tile. He can’t even tell what the design used to be, only that it was some deep, near-reddish color. A really strange choice for a VA, but then . . . Scott’s no interior designer.

 

“How’ve you been?” Reyes asks as the silence between them drags out and Scott shows a disinclination to break it. “I mean . . . I know that’s a . . . naïve and loaded question for probably many reasons, considering where we are, but—”

 

“I’m fine.” Scott says, managing a smile that’s probably not too kosher. Not going off the expression on Reyes’s handsome, somewhat alarmed face when Scott looks up. But the only thing he can think to do is crank the painful-pathetic smile up wider and repeat himself. “I’m fine. And you? You look . . . well.”

 

Reyes’s brows lift, slow and somehow empathetic. “ _Ryder_ ,” he says low and weighted with meaning, and for a few moments, the old days are back, so powerful and real—far more real than any hallucination Scott’s had since he was released from the VA Hospital—that Scott can’t even breathe. Can’t see, for the sudden tears in his eyes.

 

Blinking even as his own eyes widen, Reyes takes an unconscious step forward, one that Scott doesn’t match back, this time.

 

“Scott,” he says again, and like a spell is broken, Scott shakes his head, wincing and looking down as he edges not back, but to his right. Toward the exit.

 

“Anyway, it was nice to see you again. I should go. Have a good night,” he mumbles, shuffling away from the counter with the coffee machine, snacks, and utensils, and toward the circular rows of chairs and the exit. There’re already some people hanging around near the archway and in the corridor, talking and laughing like comrades and old friends, and Scott . . . Scott suddenly understands consciously what he’s always known deep down: Places like this aren’t for him.

 

Never have been, never will be.

 

Coming here at all, even just for some damn coffee and free donuts was a mistake. Coming back to this town, period, was . . . a mistake. Not the first Scott’s made, only the latest.

 

“Scott, wait—don’t go!” Reyes calls after him, but Scott barely hears it over the chairs he’s shoving and kicking out of the way. Over the din of his own panting, and his rabbiting heart. Over the scream that’s been reverberating inside his head for nine years and only ever seems to get louder.

 

#

 

The lately-fallen evening is a blur of color and sound, and it makes Scott cringe even as he runs. Stumbles. Then runs some more.

 

After a century, it seems, Scott blinks and finds himself standing stock-still in a totally different place, panting for breath, but no longer gasping for it.

 

The neon sign above the diner says: **Della’s** and below that, **OPEN 24**.

 

Scott stares at diner and sign from across the dark, dusty street, blinking and slowly coming out of his fugue-state. Coming back to what passes for himself.

 

It takes a few minutes, but he recognizes the place for what it _was_ : _The Olympic Diner_ , once owned by the Papadakis family. At least as of shortly after Scott and Sara’s eighteenth birthday, which they’d spent at the _Olympic_ , swilling free malteds with Renny and Athena Papadakis—children of the owners, and also fraternal twins—and bullshitting into the night about their plans for the future.

 

Renny and Athena had been bowled-over by Sara’s and Scott’s determination to join the Marines. Bowled-over and admiring and envious—their own eighteenth birthday was still almost two years off—and semi-flirty in Renny’s case. But Sara hadn’t been even remotely interested. She’d always claimed that she wasn’t cut out for that kind of attachment, and Scott had always scoffed and grumbled that if he’d had cute boys panting after him so frequently, he’d damned-sure _make_ himself cut out for it.

 

For though they’d both inherited the semi-angelic features of the Harlow side of the family—the dimples and pinchable cheeks, the big, round dark eyes, and innocent-sweet smiles . . . while all those things had made Sara pretty and irresistible, they’d simply made Scott a target. Damned-near until his final—unimpressive—growth spurt at sixteen took him from a slim, unintimidating five-six, to a gangly, slightly less unintimidating five-ten and a half.

 

Now, Scott has no idea what he looks like, anymore, other than unshaven and dirty, gaunt and unstable. He knows that he has a tendency to hold internal conversations with himself out loud and that he sometimes flinches defensively for no discernable reason.

 

He doubts that he looks even _semi_ -angelic anymore, and Sara . . . well, Sara doesn’t look like _anything_ , except his own fuzzy, pain-edged memories.

 

He tries to conjure an accurate mental snapshot of her, as he so often has, and instead, imagines the Papadakis twins: short, brawny, cute Renny and even-shorter, curvy, pretty Athena. Remembers their smiles, their crooked-white teeth, their strong features and curly, dark hair.

 

He remembers them _very_ clearly. And for the first time in years, he wonders what happened to them, and who the fuck _Della_ is.

 

He both cares and doesn’t. Or supposes he would care if he had the emotional reserves to do so. In any event, the idle speculation is better than the deepening self-hatred that comes with not remembering the face of the last person who’d ever loved him.

 

Unconsciously wiping tears from his face with a scarred, work-roughened hand that still faintly stings, Scott takes a breath and steps off the curb. With movement comes the realization of where he is in more detail. Van Ness and Fourth, which means he’d come all of three blocks from the VA, then stood across from the diner like the drooling-idiot and mental-case he so often is, for . . . however long.

 

A glance at the evening sky shows that the moon’s risen, but that tells him nothing. Time is . . . difficult for Scott to keep track of, and has been for years. Minutes, hours, days, weeks, months . . . they all bleed together. All _bleed_.

 

He crosses from the darker, shadowed side of the short, empty street—it’s nothing but closed businesses and a sketchy-looking apartment building with few lights on in any of the windows—to the diner-side, which features nothing but the diner, its parking lot, and a bicycle repair shop. As he gets closer, the sense of nostalgia, surprisingly, fades, and is replaced by a curiously keen sense of being grounded in the present.

 

“I’m at _Della’s_. On Van Ness, near the corner of Fourth,” Scott tells himself as he steps onto the sidewalk. His voice is calm and only a little dreamy-shaky, and he’s nodding with a certainty that feels giddy-nice, if a bit suspect. “Open 24. Maybe I’ll get a slice of cobbler.”

 

He does _not_ have cobbler cash.

 

He goes in, anyway.

 

#

 

A half-hour later, nursing his third free refill of coffee and staring into the night beyond the booth window, Scott blinks, then nearly chokes on his sugary, lukewarm mouthful.

 

And maybe he flails a bit or jerks noticeably, because the tall figure stalking by on the sidewalk—glancing around distractedly, scrubs still rumpled and slightly askew, face determined and hopeful—doesn’t merely look at the diner as he passes, but _looks in_ , at Scott. Probably drawn by the sudden motion.

 

Scott, of course, freezes. But it’s too late. His startlement has drawn the other’s gaze, and with it a surprised and elated smile, big and unreserved. It’s followed by one, arm-shot-up wave.

 

Looking back down at his coffee—all the certainty, suspect or otherwise, that’d let him enjoy the relative peace of a mostly-empty _Della’s_ has flown—Scott scrambles inwardly for some sort of agency or plan. But he doesn’t have any. He never has. That was always _Sara_ , and Sara’s. . . .

 

Outwardly, but for the almost palsied tremor of his right hand, gripping the coffee cup, he is still frozen.

 

He remains that way until another body slides into the booth across from him, after shoving in a fullish backpack and dropping a battered, brown leather jacket on top of it.

 

Scott releases the coffee cup and it rocks in its saucer. His hand—darker than the larger hand that settles across the table, but not quite as dark as the leather jacket—lands on the table near the undisturbed silverware, twitching and limp like a half-dead insect. His jagged nails, what’s left of them, are dirty. He’s vaguely ashamed, but too wound-up to do anything about it, such as pull his hand to his side or hide it under the table.

 

“ _Ryder_ ,” that forever-ago-voice murmurs. Then tries again, when Scott flinches and hangs his head even more. “Scott.”

 

“Are you a doctor, now?” It just falls from Scott’s numb lips, nervous and uninterested-sounding. Incredulous, too.

 

The hand across from Scott’s tenses, then relaxes. The nails are clean and well-kept. “Registered nurse, actually. Triage. Mainly, I . . . coordinate things between EMS and the E.R. Make sure things that need to happen _happen_ , things that don’t _don’t_ , and that everything in between is hiccup-free.”

 

Scott’s brows shoot up, but he keeps his eyes on the faded mauve table and his coffee cup. “I thought you joined the Air Force.”

 

“I did.” A chuckle. “But one can’t fly cool planes on dangerous missions _forever_.”

 

“I wouldn’t know.”

 

“Mm.” It’s a noncommittal sound, and Reyes’s other hand settles on the table, too. Then those hands clasp each other with measured ease. “Did you . . . you were in the Armed Forces, as well.”

 

Scott frowns, but nods once, terse and sharp. It’s more of a muscle spasm than a nod, really. “Yep. Marines. Sara and me.”

 

Scott can feel Reyes’s surprise. “Sara Ryder,” he murmurs reverently, as if speaking of a myth or legend. Then he chuckles, and it’s the same. It’s _the same_ as it was that summer when Scott was fifteen and Reyes was nineteen, and they’d both just sort of _connected_ out of nowhere. Despite the differences in their ages and circumstances—Scott and his twin living in a loveless, but safely predictable foster home on the skids, and Reyes living with his grandmother and uncle in a marginally better part of town—and personalities, they’d never managed to find better company than each other. And for reasons Scott had understood pretty early in their friendship.

 

At least, he’d understood his _own_ reasons. Reyes’s reasons were still a mystery. Though, at that time, the older boy had had a well-earned rep for being a liar and a no-’ccount, whom few were willing to waste their time on. Scott and, to a lesser extent, Sara, had been among the few. It was entirely likely Reyes simply hadn’t been a choosy beggar, and had accepted _any_ friendliness or camaraderie no matter the source.

 

Sometimes, however, Scott remembers just walking with Reyes, their arms bumping and fingers brushing. Looking over at Reyes to find the taller, older boy looking right back at him with those playful, mesmerizing green eyes . . . all flash and fire and amusement.

 

He remembers never in his life, before or since, wanting to be kissed so badly, and thinking that Reyes might, sooner or later, do just that. Or maybe _Scott_ would . . . if he could borrow a cup of Sara’s courage and ballsiness. All he had of his _own_ was patience and an optimism that’d been endless.

 

He remembers. . . .

 

But he can’t be certain. His memory is . . . unreliable at the best of times. Scattered and traumatized and compromised, by heartache and grief and loneliness. So the VA shrinks have told him.

 

And anyway, Reyes never did kiss him. Nor had Scott kissed Reyes. Not even that last night before he left, when Scott’d thought the heartbreak would kill him and, at that point, had truly hoped it would.

 

“. . . not surprised she wound up in the military. The Sara I remember would’ve been an effective and competent soldier,” Reyes is saying fondly, sounding a bit bemused.

 

“She was,” Scott agrees, swallowing reflexively. “She was the best. A hero.”

 

A silence, hesitant and sad, stretches between them. Reyes breaks it when the waitress comes over, dropping a menu in front of him with an air of impatience.

 

“Yes, I’ll have a, er, coffee and two slices of apple cobbler,” Reyes says, softly, not bothering with the menu. The waitress whisks it away, and is gone in a waft of coffee and fried food. Through it all, Scott can feel Reyes’s gaze on him, gentle and steady, like the light of candle in a room that’s otherwise infinitely dark and infinitely large. “I . . . notice you’re using past-tense.”

 

Scott doesn’t say anything. His chest hurts—feels warm and hollow and creaky. Sometimes, that’s all the warning he gets before he wakes up bloodied, bruised, and in lock-up with no memory of how he got there.

 

 _Not with him. Not with Reyes_ , he tells himself, forcing his fists to unclench.

 

“Scott,” Reyes murmurs, and finally, Scott finds it in himself to look up. To meet those beautiful, almost glowing eyes. He swallows again and shrugs.

 

“My sister’s dead, Reyes,” he says without inflection or emotion, and for the first time in the nine years, six months, and however many days since his commanding officer had brought the news. And since he doesn’t want to see what comes after the shock in Reyes’s luminous eyes, Scott looks back out the window again, into the dry, pitiless night. His fingers begin drumming a nonsense-solo on the table and the smile that twists his lips is a pathetic snarl. “My Sara’s . . . long gone.”

 

#

 

 

The next time the silence between them is broken, it’s after Reyes’s coffee and cobblers arrive.

 

Both slices get pushed toward Scott who huffs, but doesn’t bother acting like someone who’d turn down free calories for pride or principle.

 

When one slice of cobbler is nothing but crumbs and a few smears of apple goo, and the second one is just begging for Scott’s minutely shaking fork, Reyes, stops sipping contemplatively at his coffee and watching Scott, and sighs.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says roughly, and Scott snorts, keeping his gaze on the cobbler.

 

“Okay,” he says, easily enough. Because it is. Because it’s as _okay_ as it’ll ever get. Because _sorry_ never fixes anything, anyway, but Scott’s not about to disabuse Reyes of his luxurious belief that it does. He only wishes he could remember what it felt like to take comfort from words, even if it’s maybe just because of who’s speaking them.

 

“I . . . I really am, Scott. So very sorry.”

 

“Thanks,” Scott mumbles politely around a mouthful of warm cobbler that’s just a _bit_ too sweet . . . just the way he likes it.

 

This silence is brief, but frustrated. Well, for Reyes, anyway. For Scott, it’s _all_ about the cobbler, which is actually better than he remembers it being when this place was the _Olympic_.

 

“When . . . when did you two join-up?” Reyes asks, as if that’s not the question he wants to ask at all. Scott squints down at his last couple of bites.

 

“Right after we were legal.”

 

“Then, about three years after I left.”

 

Scott is surprised that Reyes remembers how old he and Sara were, even in relation to his own leaving. But he shrugs. “Sounds about right.”

 

Reyes sighs once more. “Scott . . . _Ryder_ . . . I meant to write to you, but I never did,” he says, haltingly, guiltily. Scott snorts again.

 

“You were in the armed services during a war, Reyes,” Scott says, shoveling in another bite of cobbler. The sweetness is starting to get on his nerves, but he honestly isn’t sure about the last time he ate, so imagines the sugar rush-crash to be better than passing out from hunger. Having experienced more of the latter than the former, especially lately, Scott’s really not looking forward to next time. “Imagine: a grown man with his own troubles and battles, not wanting to waste his precious time writing to some starry-eyed brat who spent a summer following him around like a love-sick puppy! Shocking!”

 

“Ryder—”

 

“And it’s not like I even expected you to write back, anyway,” Scott lies angrily, poorly. The only thing that’d eventually stopped him from writing his monthly letters to Reyes Vidal, care of the Air Force—for almost exactly ten years—had been Sara’s death. He’d gotten the news a few days after sending out that month’s letter and then . . . never picked up his pen again. Everything’d gone so fast after that. And at the end of four months, Scott had been convalescing and crazy at an AFB in Germany, until his loony ass’d been shipped back home.

 

“We promised we’d write each other, Scott,” Reyes says in that strange, thick voice, leaning forward a bit. Scott catches a whiff of coffee, hand sanitizer, and fabric softener. “We promised and you were . . . true to that promise. Faithful and loyal and _true_. And I . . . I was none of those things. I didn’t know how to be. Even just picking up a pen to write you back and tell you I was still alive, still missed you, and was still pulling myself through with little more the anticipation of your letters. And the thought of maybe having something wonderful to come home to, when all was said and done. . . .” he sighs again, heavy and frustrated. “That scared me. Even more than the possibility of dying. I was a coward and I lost my chance. Threw it away, really.”

 

Scott, frowning, now, risks a glance up. Reyes is staring out into the night, his brow furrowed, his handsome profile grim and brooding.

 

“Lost your chance at what?” Scott asks, and Reyes glances at him. Smiles a bit, though it doesn’t reach those shining eyes.

 

“Something wonderful,” he says, the smile fading as he looks down into the depths of his remaining coffee.

 

#

 

They each have one more refill of the coffee, then Reyes signals for the check.

 

Scott lets him pay for it all, including his own coffee, and watches as Reyes stands and grabs his jacket. Then, once that’s on, his backpack. All without looking at Scott, who can’t stop staring at the only person left who’d known him when he was young.

 

Reyes’s eyes suddenly meet his own, uncertain and intense, angry and pained. Scott can’t even  be sure what, if any, of that slew of emotion is aimed at him.

 

“Why did you stop writing me? After years of monthly letters and despite my lack of response . . . why did you stop?”

 

Surprised at the question, Scott blinks and tears run down his cheeks, as hot as his face is cold.

 

“Sara died,” he says simply, spreading hands that, for the moment, don’t shake. “IED on a back road in Afghanistan. Blew half her company to Hell. I was near Mosul when it happened. Didn’t get the news till almost two weeks later. And I just . . . I kinda went sideways, after that. Became a ‘danger to myself and to others.’ Started having . . . symptoms and shit. PTSD. Depression. Anxiety. One of my shrinks thought I was maybe schizo, but the others thought it was just . . . psychotic symptoms because of the other stuff.” Biting his lip, Scott lets out his breath in a slow, sardonic plume, but doesn’t drop his gaze, for once. “By the time I was let outta the hospital Stateside, I didn’t see any point in forcing my messed-up life on you, anymore. Didn’t wanna cast a pall on whatever happiness or contentment you mighta found. I . . . I grew up, Reyes. Or maybe I gave up. I dunno. I just know that the person I used to be is in that empty casket at Arlington. Pretending otherwise is part of what made me go crazy and . . . I can’t pretend anymore. I don’t know how. I can only be the person I am now, for better or worse. And I guess . . . I guess that person isn’t much of a letter-writer. Sorry.”

 

Reyes stares down into Scott’s eyes, his own stricken and wide. Shining with tears that don’t fall even when he blinks.

 

“Y’know, Ryder,” he says, in that wry, sly way Scott remembers so well, “I hate this fucking town, so much. I always have. Especially after my _abuelita_ and _Tio_ Hector passed on. I . . . would rather live _anywhere_ else, just about. And yet, I’ve been here since just after I was discharged.”

 

Scott's brow furrows. He, himself, has never been especially fond of this town, despite having eventually wound up right back in it, and for the past three months. But if Scott Ryder had _ever_ had a home, or something close to it, it’d been _this town_. “That’s . . . why? Why stay here?”

 

Reyes smiles again, and this time, it _does_ touch his eyes. Neither smile nor eyes are exactly _pleased_ , but the expression still makes Scott’s heart squirm in his chest.

 

“I . . . guess you could say I’ve been . . . waiting for someone. In the best and only place I knew to do so,” Reyes murmurs, the smile wavering. “Waiting in the last place we were together and the last place I was ever genuinely _happy_. Waiting for him to come home to me.”

 

Scott returns the smile with a small, unsure one. “I don’t even remember what _home_ or _happy_ feels like—though that cobbler was pretty close, I’m thinking—just that the only time I ever felt them was . . . here.”

 

Reyes chuckles again, soft and a little desperate around the edges. His eyes never leave Scott’s and they brim with so much emotion that Scott wishes he could look away.

 

But he never could. Not at fifteen, and not at thirty-four.

 

“Where’re you staying?” Reyes asks suddenly. Scott shrugs.

 

“Wherever,” he says, neither glib nor dismissive, just honest. He doesn’t trust shelters and doesn’t sleep in the same place two nights running. As a result, he doesn’t sleep very often, very long, or very well.

 

Reyes’s mouth tics and his eyes flicker. “I . . . I have a spare room,” he says, and Scott nods. Then after a minute of patient staring from Reyes, Scott gets it. And he finds it in himself to look away at last.

 

“You’re a kind man, Reyes,” he says in a tired and flat voice he barely recognizes as his own.

 

“Hardly, Ryder,” is the reply, purred in that way that’d used to drive Scott up a wall . . . and still kind of does. “Let me be absolutely candid with you—there’s an offer few have ever had from Reyes Vidal—this isn’t kindness. Not at all. If you were anyone else, I’d have walked out of here before you finished your cobbler, content in the knowledge that I’d done my good deed for the millennium.”

 

When Scott risks another look up, Reyes is frowning down Scott’s hand. The right one, with the shiny-raw burn-scars. Scott doesn’t even notice them, anymore, and can’t even remember what it'd felt like to have his hand and arm _burn_. Can’t remember anything about the incident responsible except light and heat and _screams_ that must have been his own, since the rest of his fire-team had been dead or near-dead at that point. Scott himself had been dying, too. But definitely smiling. Because he’d been happy. It had been _over at last_ , the loneliness and war and killing. All over. His Sara was going to come to lead him home, to Mom and Dad and little baby Sam, who’d never even had a chance to live . . . Sara was going to lead him _home_. Or oblivion would take him. Either way, it was an _end_ and that was all he’d been hoping for. Anything beyond that would’ve been gravy.

 

“But it’s _you_ , Ryder. _Scott_.” Reyes is smiling again, hard and miserable, his eyes shining and resolute. “Y’know, I still remember the first time I saw you . . . scrawny-short kid in clothes he had yet to grow into, trying to teach my neighbor’s whiny little brat how to do cartwheels. Falling on his head and his ass a few times, while said little brat laughed, but working with her to get those cartwheels just right, until they were both cartwheeling up and down Knott Street like lunatics.” Smirking a bit, Reyes looks down again. “I think about that every day and have since . . . since the night before I left for Basic Training.”

 

 _Scott_ frowns, now. He doesn’t remember that at all. It sounds like something the boy Reyes had known would do, though. That boy had been a clown and a doof, and had loved nothing more than making people, especially children, smile and laugh.

 

Well, he’d come to love _one thing_ more.

 

Blinking up at that one thing, Scott tries on a smile that’s not very firm. “I’m . . . glad you have good memories of that time. Clear ones. Glad that they . . . aren’t taxing for you.”

 

Though that last bit is more than half-question.

 

Reyes meets his gaze again, solemn and still shining too much about the eyes.

 

“I’ve been in love with you since we were teenagers,” he says almost wearily, shrugging. “Maybe even since that afternoon spent watching you do shitty cartwheels with a little girl you apparently didn’t even know, just to amuse her and lighten her spirits. And after that summer . . . I’ve had a varied life full of adventures and experiences I wouldn’t trade for anything. I make a habit of . . . not regretting the things that have shaped me into who I am. But there’s one thing I’ve regretted endlessly, for almost half my life, and that’s . . . not kissing you good-bye the night before I left.”

 

It takes a bit for Scott to process this. And then, once he does, he’s certain he’s hallucinated. _Again_. But for however long it takes for his brain to wrap around what Reyes has maybe-said, he’s caught in that green gaze once more.

 

“And believe me,” the older man finally goes on gruffly, his face settled into grim lines yet again, “I don’t expect that my life would’ve been some fairy-tale romance, had I been man enough to admit to you how I felt and what I wanted. But I think my life might have been . . . very different. Probably better. Because in all the time since that last night, up to earlier tonight, no one has eclipsed your memory, let alone taken your place. You’re the one who . . . not got away. You’re the one I _pushed_ away through inaction and cowardice, even though I was given chance after chance, and was plainly shown the truth of your heart with every letter you sent—” Reyes barks a harsh, self-mocking laugh that hurts Scott’s heart. It’s the first time something has in nearly ten years that hasn’t been about the loss of Sara. “I still have every letter, y’know? Every single one. They kept me going. Kept me strong. Kept me _alive_.”

 

Scott feels that hollow, creaking warmth in his chest again, even as his fists tighten. He shakes his head in negation, even as his vision tinges red.

 

 _Not now, please . . . not now_ , he begs someone—God, the universe, Reyes, himself . . . _Sara_ —and closes his throbbing eyes. But Reyes is still speaking. He sounds closer, too. Like he might be right in front of Scott and kneeling.

 

“. . . when things were dire and hopeless I kept going because I told myself I had _you_ to come back to. To make things right with. To give you the life you deserve,” Reyes is saying in a soft, breathless rush. His hand, warm and gentle, lands on Scott’s scarred one and Scott instantly jerks away, because of rage and reflex. Reyes sighs, but goes on, after a few moments: “To prove to you that I love you. And that while I may have done nothing to deserve you, I would _always_ , if given a chance, treasure you.”

 

“Why are you telling me this?” Scott’s voice is cracking with a mix of anger and sadness that sounds only about half as painful as it feels. He doesn’t open his eyes, for fear he’ll black-out and wake up in lock-up again, only to find out he’d _hurt_ Reyes, or . . . worse. “Do you think it’s gonna do either of us any good, _now_?”

 

“I don’t know. But I hope. For the first time in a long time, actually,” Reyes says, and Scott huffs out a bitter laugh.

 

“Uh-huh. Well, newsflash, Nurse Vidal, that idiot-kid you wish you'd kissed back when it could’ve done either of you any good, is _dead_. Nearly a decade in his grave. I’m just all the crazy, angry, painful shit he left behind.”

 

That warm-gentle-heavy hand settles on Scott’s again, and his entire ribcage seems to heat and creak and sigh, as if compressed in a scorching vise.

 

“ _Don’t_ ,” he grits out. But Reyes only clasps his hand in response, squeezing lightly.

 

“I have a spare room,” Reyes says again, rough but tender. “It’s yours for as long as you want it, no questions and no pressure. As long as _I_ have a home, _you_ are welcome in it forever. _Wanted_ , even.”

 

Shivering hard, Scott shakes his head and still refuses to open his eyes. “What do you want, Reyes? What do you _expect_? Because, in all honesty, I have _nothing_ and I _am_ nothing. There’re no good bits left for me to give or share or make an effort for. So, what do you want from me?”

 

“What I expect from you is to let me help you in the name of the friendship that changed my life, if not yours, for the better. What I expect is for you to give yourself a chance to . . . resurrect that idiot-kid. Wake him from the nightmare-slumber he fell into when the person he loved most died.” Reyes takes a deep breath and lets it out as a tired, self-deprecating laugh. At the sound of it, Scott’s chest begins to cool a bit, though it still feels caught in a vise. “As for what I want . . . what I _hope for_ . . . that’s probably far more apparent than I’m currently comfortable discussing, at this time.”

 

“What happened to absolute candor?”

 

“Well, there’s _candor_ . . . and there’s putting unfair pressure on someone with whom you’ve been desperately in love for nineteen years, for no other reason _than_ that desperate love. Someone who’s clearly still grieving and struggling to find his way, and who needs your pathetic, obsessive infatuation like he needs a hole in his head.”

 

Scott sighs and says nothing for several minutes. Simply sits with his hand in Reyes’s, eyes closed, and his chest still warm, but not hot. Still aching, but not creaking. Still hollow, but the moans aren’t echoing as loud.

 

The scream that always seems to be howling between his ears hasn’t stopped, but it’s quietened a bit. He can almost hear himself think over it.

 

Finally, he opens his eyes and finds himself looking down into Reyes’s. They’re urgent and wide and searching; red and wet and a little swollen. But his cheeks are dry.

 

“You’ll only end up disappointed.”

 

“You’ve never disappointed me, Scott.”

 

“Then I’d say we’re both about due. You’re gonna regret . . . you’re gonna be sorry you offered to help and unhappy when your pet charity case turns out to be a fucking quagmire.”

 

Reyes smirks like old times and Scott’s heart _hurts_ , but in a cleaner, purer way than it has since the night Reyes left, all those years ago.

 

“I’ve already had the worst regret of my life. I nearly compounded it this evening, by walking away.” Reyes shakes his head ruefully. “But I didn’t. I _couldn’t_. It may take a while, but even I eventually learn. And anyway, you’re not a charity case to _me_ , Scott Ryder, you’re. . . .” he’s still shaking his head and blinks. This time, tears run down his cheeks, even though he’s still smirking. “You’re _everything_. You’ve been my guardian angel, my goal, my direction, my damned _reason to keep going_. You’re alive and you’re _here_ , you’re broken and hurting, but I can still see that amazing, beautiful heart shining out of you like a lighthouse. How could I be less than happy—less than _ecstatic_ —in the face of that?”

 

And after another moment—one in which Scott is completely speechless—Reyes smiles, and it is _painfully_ hopeful and loving and adoring. _Smitten_ , as Sara might’ve said.

 

“You’re looking at me and seeing a dead boy with dead hopes,” Scott accuses. Warns. Promises. Reyes’s smile only widens, and he reaches up with his free hand to cup Scott’s scruffy-beardy cheek in his hand. Gentle and tender, as if Scott’s made of china.

 

“Oh,” Reyes breathes softly, when Scott leans into that caring caress as helplessly as a touch-starved kitten. “Scott, I . . . when I look at you, I see someone I’ve loved from the first. Someone who’s kind and true and far better than he knows. I see someone who’s had a tough and at times terrible life that wasn’t made any better for my inaction and spinelessness. I see a man who, despite harms that would’ve killed a lesser person, is still standing—still moving forward, still hoping, buried though that hope is. I look at you, Scott, and I see _zero_ reasons to fall _out_ of crazy, obsessive love with you. And about a million more reasons to fall deeper in. And I _am_. Falling, that is. So help me, I said I wouldn’t pressure you. Told myself I wouldn’t . . . but I suppose I’m a liar, after all.

 

“You _dazzle_ me, Ryder. Two decades of wanting— _needing_ —you is making me stupid, greedy, and incautious. _Selfish_. And for that, I apologize, I—”

 

But Reyes falls silent, his eyes gone wider than ever. It takes a couple seconds for Scott to realize he’s turned his hand palm-up under Reyes’s, and his free hand has come up to cover Reyes’s and press it more firmly to his cheek.

 

“Sometimes,” Scott says quietly, closing his eyes briefly and biting his lip. “Sometimes, I wake up screaming . . . several times a night.”

 

“Welcome to the club,” Reyes says with wry kindness and understanding. When Scott opens his eyes again, Reyes is staring down at their hands on the table. “I wasn’t at the VA for shits and giggles, y’know? I’m a regular at more than just that grief counseling group you bolted from.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Scott says, a different feeling welling up in his chest that has nothing to do with anger. This feels more like despair: heavy, cool, and bleak.

 

“We’re soldiers. Hazard of the occupation. It’s _not_ your fault,” Reyes informs him as if Scott has claimed otherwise.

 

Shrugging, Scott isn’t sure he wouldn’t have, given a few more moments. Sometimes, it seems as if the solution to everyone’s problems, including his own, would be the subtraction of one Scott D. Ryder.

 

Reyes frowns as if reading some of Scott’s turn of thought, then stands easily, gracefully, as he does everything. This is old times, but it’s _new_ , too. Scott is confused and breathless and shaking as Reyes pulls him to his feet. But his hands settle on Reyes’s shoulders like basic instinct, and Reyes grasps Scott’s waist like the same. He pulls Scott closer than they’ve ever been to each other, but not so close that Scott feels the need to pull away, or even look away.

 

“One day,” Reyes says, with the sturdy, steady ring of an oath, his eyes direct and deep on Scott’s. “One day, I’m going to kiss you the way I _should have_ nineteen years ago. And then, I’m going to kiss you like I’ve been waiting to do nothing _else_ in all the years since. One day, Scott Ryder. . . .” with another chuckle, slightly embarrassed, and a small smile, Reyes shrugs, his hands clenching and releasing repeatedly on Scott’s gaunt waist. “But for now, I have a spare room, and it’s all yours for as long as you choose to stay there. No questions, no pressure, and . . . all the time you need.”

 

“I don’t know,” Scott begins, then stops and starts over. It’s difficult to talk when he’s staring into Reyes’s eyes, smelling that hand sanitizer-coffee-fabric softener scent, and being held in arms steadier than the foundations of the entire world. Scott feels small and ashamed and worthless. Like a waste of time that Reyes needs warning away from. “I’ve never . . . I mean, I was a loser in high school and, anyway, the only guy I’d ever _really_ wanted was gone and . . . then I was in the military, and not lookin’ to get bounced out, so even then I didn’t . . . I was too _afraid_ to . . . and since I got back to the States, I’ve been too scared and crazy to even make those . . . urges a priority.” He twitches and sighs in frustration. “I can’t promise you I’ll ever be right in the head again. Let alone anything else. _Anything_ else.”

 

“I’m not asking for promises, Ryder. Just for . . . the chance to help. To prove myself. To be there for you, and give you the time and space and safety needed to figure yourself out. And . . . if you should happen to realize that you’re still _madly_ in love with _me_ , somewhere along the way. . . .” another negligent shrug and Scott laughs without pausing to brood or overthink.

 

“You’re still such a conceited ass,” he says, his cheeks aching already from his first real laugh in longer than he cares to remember. “Not to mention a shady bastard.”

 

“But a handsome one,” Reyes asserts, with a wink and that old times-smirk. Then, with a restrained, but somehow gleeful squeeze of Scott’s waist, Reyes is letting him go and stepping back. He looks like he’s doing cartwheels, himself, somewhere under that sophisticated, amused game-face. “C’mon, let’s get out of here. It’s not too late for me to throw something together for dinner. You still like Italian?”

 

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?” Scott snorts when Reyes rolls his eyes and looks even more amused. Then he leans back into the booth to grab his duffel. Slings it on his back and follows Reyes to the door of the now-empty diner. Well, empty but for their taciturn waitress, who watches them with bored, disapproving eyes from her post near the counter. “I’ll eat just about anything. The only difference between me and a goat is I can’t climb for shit.”

 

“Good to know . . . how does eggplant parmigiana sound?”

 

“Like you clearly don’t remember that time we split that eggplant parm from the _Olympic_ and I threw up, like, an hour later. Almost on _you_.” Scott’s the one to smirk now, as Reyes looks surprised, then bemused.

 

“I’d forgotten about that,” he says with wonder and . . . fondness as they step out the door to the ding of a bell. When he looks over at Scott, his face is so open and vulnerable, in a way it never would have been twenty years ago. Scott looks down at his worn, filthy sneakers as his face heats.

 

“I know it was probably more that shifty, gross short order cook the Papadakises hired after Ernesto moved out of state, than the dish itself that made me ill. But still. Just the memory of the taste and consistency of the eggplant grosses me out. Blegh.” Scott shudders, and Reyes chuckles, draping his arm around Scott’s shoulders as they make their way back east, along Van Ness. The night isn’t particularly warm, but Scott’s never minded the cold. Never _noticed_ it . . . at least not until now, with the warmth of someone’s—of _Reyes’s_ arm around him.

 

He even dares to relax a little under that protective, gently guiding arm.

 

“Okay, so, no eggplant parm. How about . . . hmm . . . fettuccini carbonara? Extra _al dente_?”

 

“Um. Sounds . . . good,” Scott says, hoping it is. Or at least that it doesn’t have eggplant in it. “I’m not allergic to anything that I know of.”

 

“Excellent. I’ll finally have someone to show off my hard-won culinary skills to. Cooking classes,” Reyes adds when Scott looks up at him in question. “Pining for you is indeed more of a lifestyle than a hobby, but it still leaves one’s hands regrettably free for large amounts of time. Cooking is time-consuming, and . . . soothing to me.”

 

“Well,” Scott finally says when _Della’s_ neon signage is a semi-distant twinkle several blocks behind them. “Even though I don’t do it too often, I love to eat. I think we can . . . come to an equitable arrangement regarding our respective interests.”

 

“That’s very heartening, Ryder.” Reyes squeezes him a bit closer, then stops suddenly, turning and pulling Scott against him. His embrace is warm, his body so solid and _right_ . . .  and he smells _ridiculously_ good. His lips, when they press the corner of Scott’s mouth, are warm and soft and so many answers to so many questions he didn’t even know he’d had.

 

Reyes holds Scott and the kiss for long, intense moments, not taking further liberties, just savoring what he _has_ taken.

 

“Greedy and selfish,” he rumbles apologetically when they part. Scott, still lost in the kiss and the dreamy, textured darkness behind his eyelids huffs a small laugh.

 

“Maybe. But only ‘cause I’m so dazzling.”

 

Reyes laughs, too, and busses Scott’s scruffy cheek lightly, but reverently. “Yes, you are.”

 

Scott’s face heats again, fast and deep, but hidden under the dark of night and complexion. “And as second kisses go . . . that was, um . . . really nice.”

 

When Scott opens his eyes, Reyes is goggling at him, his mouth working soundlessly. For a few seconds, he looks incredibly sad and angry . . . but then he manages a smile and pulls Scott against him, kissing his forehead and lingering.

 

“Who’s the lucky bastard who beat me to the punch?”

 

“Athena Papadakis. I was fourteen. I met you not too long after.” _And suddenly a_ lot _of things, like why I wasn’t attracted to pretty, flirty Athena or interested in kissing her, began to make so much sense. The moment I looked into your eyes,_ everything _made sense_. . . .

 

“Well . . . I suppose coming in second to the lovely Miss Papadakis isn’t _so_ bad,” Reyes grumbles and pouts, and Scott snorts.

 

“Second _chronologically_. But not in . . . quality.” At that, Scott can feel that familiar smirk on his forehead for a moment before Reyes is turning them back east again, urging Scott along, arm around his shoulders once more. He’s talking about that carbonara-stuff again, gesturing expansively with his free arm, and staring-blinking ahead with more focus and determination than a walk home should require. And if Scott didn’t know better, he’d swear that under that coppery complexion, Reyes is . . . _blushing_.

 

Bemused—and bewildered and frightened and _hopeful_ —Scott thinks about Reyes’s spare room. He doesn’t know how long he’ll be sleeping in _that_ bedroom . . . _alone_ . . . but for the first time in a very long time, he _hopes_. . . .

 

He hopes.

 

All the way _home_ , he hopes.

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> stitchcasual’s Prompt: _Reyes/Ryder cuz I can't get enough....aaaaand...hmm, prompt.... all I want is one of them holding the other after something terrible happens_
> 
> I could write more in this 'verse. Easily. I have headcanons for DAYS. Just HMU in comments.
> 
> [TUMBLE ME](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com)!


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